Thanks for your post – I’ve had debates in the past where the person I was debating brought up similar points … I’ll likely tackle the issue in a seperate post at some point in the near future. Thanks for taking the time to relate your thoughts, which I disagree with but respect nevertheless

Just one more sign our criminal justice system when it isn’t corrupt, is badly broken. Criminals get protected and girls get raped if not murdered.

This case points to two real problems: one, why was he out of jail for a sex crime with a victim (a 31 year old woman) in just three years, and two, what good is a sex offenders’ registry if the registered offenders are not kept track of in some manner?

In the past decade or so, we’ve set up all sorts of registries for convicted sex offenders, but if they can simply register, and then leave the state (as this man did), it seems that the registries are of little use. (If you had to register as a pervert in Texas, and had no particular reason why you had to stay in Texas, wouldn’t it make more sense for you to move to Iowa than stay in Texas?)

Now, does this man deserve whatever happens to him, including death? Yup, sure does! But the question of being against capital punishment really isn’t about whether the criminals deserve it; it’s more about whether it is useful to society (and, if we have the power to execute someone, we have him literally helpless; we are not actually defending ourselves against him) and whether executing criminals actually helps our society.

I’d say that it doesn’t. The murder rates in states with capital punishment are generally higher in states taht do not, and Texas, which actually carries out the death penalty with more frequency than any other, has consistently had a murder rate higher than the national average.

(Statistics on capital punishment are available at the Death Penalty Information Center, a site opposed to capital punishment.)

But, more than not really being useful (would it really have mattered if we had just kept the fewer than 1,000 murderers executed since 1977 in jail rather than executing them?), I’d say that it is actually harmful to our society. We are saying, to our children, to everyone, that killing people who are causing us problems is a reasonable solution. The only difference between killing unborn children or people like Terri Schiavo and the convicted murderer is that some people believe they can find good reasons to kill some people, but not others.

Well, if we can find a good reason to kill James Effler, some other people found good reasons, motivated by sympathy, for starving Mrs Schiavo to death, and 1.4 million American women find good (or at least sufficient) reasons to kill their unborn children every year. Why ought our decisions, that men like Mr Effler ought to be killed, be of any greater import than the decisions of people like Michael Schiavo?

It’s a whole lot easier to simply be pro-life, period. That means that scumbags like Mr Effler wind up living, albeit in prison. But, in the end, we are better off letting them live, and retaining a logically consistent ethic in support of life.

I’ve got spare .30-30 rounds with “satan loads”.

This is the lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. Read the article here, and tell me what you think should be done with this pathetic S.O.B.

I can’t believe we are still having debates on this subject. Sexual predators simply will not stop th…

I dropped by The Ace and suggested a Jaccuzzi with part of an Outdated Nuclear Reactor Vessel being used as the tub.

With about three pounds of finely ground glass added to the soapy swirling suds.

Just to see which would end this creature’s life most quickly.

Cancer?
Radiation Sickness/Poisoning?
Internal/External bleeding?

Jack.